I Want To Save That Light
by DarkmoonSigel
Summary: A post apocalyptic AU(but the 2014 verse), retelling Supernatural from that perspective. A story about hunters binding angels and demons to them with a focus on Dean Winchester and how he goes about acquiring an angel. Mostly Destiel with other eventual pairings. M for later chapters. DARK FICTION. Steam punk kinda? NOT BETA READ Complete for now
1. Chapter 1

AN-The title of the story and the series is from "Demons" by Imagine Dragons.  
I do not own anything.I've started another story arch with no clear end in sight. Please forgive me. XD

The Apocalypse came and went. To Heaven and Hell's overall embarrassment though, it did not have the expected results. The world didn't end, nothing was really resolved, reality remained somewhat intact, and God was a total no show for the entire thing even though everyone involved was pretty damn sure it had been all his bright idea to begin with.

If all sides were being perfectly honest with one another, as far as Apocalypses went, it was all quite disappointing. Without God's backing in the whole matter, the supposed last war to end all wars crapped out at the finish line with a lackluster stalemate of sorts for a non-epic ending. The Creator had left the building but not before taking all the game plans with him, failing to leave a forwarding address for all parties involved. Left to their own devices, both sides let the war run its course until the generals of either side met in a grand finale, the ultimate prize fight.

Heaven vs. Hell.

Good vs. Evil.

Michael, 'Who is like God', the sword of Heaven vs. Lucifer, 'The Bringer of Dawn', the fallen Morning Star.

Set on Earth, the battle between the archangels tore the world of humans apart, changing continents in time span of days after the careful workings of millennia. Land lines were torn like wet paper under their feet, shaking the earth and everything that lived atop and below it apart. California was lost entirely, the state falling into the ocean like a modern day Atlantis. Florida didn't fare much better, following the West coast in its descent soon afterward.

Though it all began in the states, the rest of the world was not spared from mishap, the archangels taking their fight global. From a backlash of Lucifer's wings, Japan was wiped clean off the map, though some would later claim that it had just been moved. Australia was cleaved into almost perfect halves by Michael's sword. Africa became the tattered and torn chew toy of the dogs of war, the continent getting new peninsulas left, right, and center as entire countries were torn from it and carelessly tossed over winged shoulder. After a roll and tumble between the grappling archangels, Italy became a series of islands as did most of Europe, forming a new complex archipelago. Asia as a whole was shredded apart into new smaller continents by careless blows and wayward kicks from the celestial combatants, leaving Russia in almost even pieces of three and China distortional parts of two. India was freed of its attachment to the former continent as well and left to its own devices. A failed tacked caused South America to shatter like child's tower of building blocks, the pieces left to float upon the oceans' surface.

Canada remained mostly intact for whatever reason, many had theories on this but no real answers. The same could not be said about America though. The fight had begun there and because the universe likes symmetry whether it's willing to admit it or not, it ended there as well. For all its sins, Michigan ceased to exist as did most of the Midwest, leaving behind a floating minefield of stone in its wake. Twisted metal and death were strange monuments and grave markers for the forgotten dead, the curious proprieties of gravity forever effected from that day on and plagued with a maze of restless spirits.

During the Last Fight, the archangels' wings wounded the sky itself, destroying the currents of ocean and air so that all the weather patterns of the planet changed and not for the better. It snowed in the Sahara, what was left of it anyway, while the new islands of the earth were pounded by rampant hurricanes and tidal waves like the world was having a cosmic cold and was trying desperately to clear its metaphorical lungs. Previously frozen land masses at the poles experienced heat waves for the first time since the beginning of it all, only to freeze solid and thaw again in rapid succession until something made up its mind and left them frozen for good. If any penguins had survived, they would have been relieved.

In the grand scheme of all things, the war ended not with a bang, but with more of a whimper and a simple yet disappointing fade to black. Michael and Lucifer paused long enough between blows to trade words instead, mostly insults but at least they began talking. Stilted exchanges followed which eventually developed into a full blown and very long overdue conversation between the brothers as they sat down on what was left of Arkansas and Georgia.

Opinions and universal outlooks are exchanged and examined by the combatants for the first time since the Fall. Michael still didn't agree with Lucifer's initial decision that had led to his plunge but felt his brother had his own duty to fulfill in hell. In turn, Lucifer understood Michael's devotion for their Father, having once felt that sort of love himself for their creator but also came to realize that his brother could have never chosen any different course of action due to it, a prisoner of his own love and making.

Time and God's departure had changed many things in Heaven, in Hell, and everywhere else in between so after much debate, the brothers came to a final decision. An agreement of sorts, a tentative truce, was hashed out between the archangels. Michael would rule in Heaven while Lucifer reigned in Hell and if God ever decided to show back up again, they would say that they gave the Apocalypse a good go but it just hadn't worked out. Hopefully, God would be in a mellow mood by then and let it slide.

And so the divine army of Heaven and the profane army of Hell withdrew from the Earth and left it pretty much to its own devices. Both sides were astonished to learn something vital about their Father's creation though.

Humanity was adaptable, extraordinarily so.

Humans, given half a chance, and sometimes not even that much, could acclimate to just about any situation. There were innumerable floods, earthquakes, and every natural disaster imaginable of course, along with the Four Horsemen spreading their own personal brands of chaos, mayhem, misery, and death. Many, many people died but the ones that survived learned, relearned, and foraged on with grim determination, tenaciously clinging to life with a mixture of technology, science, and some things that should have never been forgotten in the first place. They knew now that everything that went bump in the night was real and even worse, it was hungry and wasn't too picky about what it ate. In response to the new threats, crumbling volumes of lore was dug out of crypts, ruined libraries, and other hidden places to be dusted off. Old rituals were brought back into practice, and ancient magics were revived with an unprecedented fervor and following.

With the old came the merging of the new as well. Blessed swords of silver were laser inscribed with primordial runes of protection, guns were modified for rounds packed with salt, dead man's blood, and holy water, and Kevlar armor was marked with anti-possession sigils and lined with iron. Salt became more valued than gold and holy water could be found readily enough on anyone's person. Iron and silver became more cherished than gold or diamonds, and salt was a part of any home, working into the brickwork and foundations of all building new and old or preserved under duct tape or mixed with cement glue. Latin was spoken as a second language and for the sake of survival, even the smallest child could recite verses in it well enough to repel demons if need be.

The angels and demons that chose to wander or remain on earth, for one reason or another, found themselves faced with a determined, fierce opposition. Demons were caught in devil's traps and left bound there to rot if they were lucky. With alchemy revived in full force, dissection and organ harvesting was not an unusual practice.

On the other end of the spectrum, angels were banished and repelled, hard won Enchonian symbols painted in blood and carved upon the walls of homes and cities alike, keeping the celestial host out of the affairs of humans entirely.

The other monsters who used to live on the fringes were found out as well, the creatures of legend and lore no longer feeling a need to hide themselves. Werewolves, vampires, and all the others roamed the new scrawling countryside, eating anyone stupid enough who dared into their path. The would be nightmare kings of the new long night found out that they should have perhaps stayed hidden. Their return was hailed with silver bullets, iron blades, and banishment spells from behind salt circles and iron clad walls.

Like phoenixes from the proverbial ashes, the cities of man rose again and were considered safe to an extent, existing in a state of permanent lockdown with every wall, window, and armed watchtowers riddled with devil's traps, Echonian warding, iron in every fixture and salt in every spare corner. Technology creeped back in though like everything it was changed.

Magic ran alongside electricity more often than not, given birth and rise to Spell Hacking or the GITM, mages of technology. It was due to them that cars, phones, and computers were made a possibility again though no one was sure how they managed it and GITM weren't about to give away their secrets.

For better and sometimes worse, the smaller towns were left to their own devices and ultimately their own survival, becoming the beacons of civilization on the edges of infinity.

Between the last cities and the smattering of towns that lay beyond them was the remains of Earth, shredded, torn, and made wrong by the fury and the powers of Heaven and Hell. The laws of physics were suspended in some places, giving rise to floating mazes of frayed land or gravity wells that crushed anything living that wandered into them into paste. Deserts of ice and fire stretched out like oceans between strips of life sustaining land. The remaining fertile places were overly so, filled with dark, strange jungles of constantly moving shadows and vengeful flora. Like humanity, fauna adapted as well, becoming sharper, faster, and exponentially more vicious.

The only people who dared travel between these wide open spaces of madness and chaos were the Hunters.

Hunters were men and women who made it their business to deal with monsters in the most violent ways possible. They were seen as anything and everything by this brave, new world. Salvation for some, unsung heroes by a few, and necessary evils by others. Sometimes loved, sometimes abhorred, hunters would travel through the Frontier from town to town, seeking bounties, work, and even sometimes, vengeance.

Some did it for profit. Some did it for retribution. Some did it simply for the thrill, using whatever was at their disposal to eliminate the evils that walked the earth so openly now. Any hunter worth his salt knew one or two spells to aid them in this. The most common form of magic among them was soul binding magic. No one knew who started it or discovered it, but demons and angels alike got to find this out firsthand in force. Through ritual and an exchange of sorts, a hunter could enslave a demon or angel to not just their will, but their blood as well. Family members could inherit a bound being if the original caster died, a demon or angel condemned to serve a family for generations, never to see the light of Heaven or the hellfire of Hell again..

Out of the two, demons were the easier to ensnare and control. That and a hunter was less likely to feel guilty about binding a demon to do their bidding. Criminals sentenced to death were sold to hunters for these types of possessions, capital punishment taking on a new form of justice.

While more highly prized, angels were far harder to come by. Besides being a hell of a lot more powerful than demons, finding a vessel for an angel to inhabit was a very rare thing to come by. Unlike the damned who could possess any poor bastard, an angel needed a person of biblical blood and even more importantly, consent on that person's part. People who knew they were vessels hid this at nearly all costs, their secret basically a death sentence. Angel possession left the human a burned out, drooling husk if one somehow managed to survive the process of an angel coming and going. There were more than a few horror stories of desperate or power hungry hunters kidnapping potential vessels to force consent out of them.

For all their sins, the hunters became the thin red line for the remaining vestige of humanity between their survival and total destruction. As time passed as it did, certain families gained notoriety for their skill in the field and thus legacies were born.

Of the hunters, the Harvelles were probably the most well known if not the easiest to find, the family owning a bar at a crossroads in what used to be Kansas, an immense, multilevel building of blessed, rune carved wood so weathered it was silvery grey. The Roadhouse was haven and home for many a wayward hunter, a port in the storm, the building and land around it warded from everything by blood and rock salt to silver and semen. It was a place where a hunter could sleep safely, heal, grab a beer, info, or a job. The bar was run by Ellen and her daughter Jo, Ellen's husband given a hunter's funeral years back after a hunt turned bad and bloody. The mother daughter duo did a little hunting on the side when monsters stuck their noses too close to the bar but for the most part kept to their own. Their angel was a slim red head who went by the name of Anna who was their bartender/bouncer. She could often be found at Jo's side.

The Singers were the keepers of lore, secrets, and ancient knowledge, the levels of which remained unrivaled. It came at a price though as the last remaining member of the family will tell you if he felt like answering such a mundane question. Bobby Singer was the most skilled spell caster of a generation and fount of forgotten lore and ritual. He was also a shameless drunk and one hell of a paranoid bastard if one could believe Crowley, demon king of the Crossroads, who was Bobby's servant. No one knew how wily old hunter had managed that one and he wasn't telling.

The Turners were another family renowned for their use of magic and hunting prowess. The patriarch of the family Rufus was an especially famed for his use of incantation. The Turner also for having a long history and unspoken alliance with the Singers. Often referred to by Rufus as 'the girls', Rachel and Hester were a pair of angels that served the family, what was left of it anyway. Hunting was hard on bodies and the Turners were no exception, Rufus being a last remaining survivor of his name.

The strategists of the hunting world were the Fitzgeralds who were known for their innovative problem solving and out of the box thinking. They were also recognized, even among other hunters, for being a little strange and touched in the head. A fresh faced angel named Samandriel served the family but was treated as one of them, the angel found often enough reading the last surviving comics books with Garth, the current head of the family. Never too far from the pair, one could also find Frank Devereaux, Garth's older, crotchety cousin. One hell of a paranoid bastard, Frank was the family's GITM, a talented hacker of considerably skill and a hunter's go-to for all things tech.

Walkers were feared more than honored, their methods considered harsh and merciless even among their own kind. Uriel was their grim enforcer, the angel often seen with their most prominent son, Gordon. The less that was said about them, the better.

The Campbells were a pedigree of hunter all to their own, their lineage going all the way back to the Mayflower. A long line of hunters even before the end of days, there were very few things this family had not killed and even fewer monster who wouldn't turn tail when they heard hint that the Campbells were out and about on a hunt. The family believed in the sole use of demons, claiming that angels were too unpredictable. Azazel, Lilith, Meg, and Ruby were the family's demons, bound in chains of Latin, blood, and badly worded deals to the will of the family.

Chuck, a scion from a family of proven prophets had his madness, alcoholism and Raphael to contend with, though apparently the archangel was not a servant but divine protection, the archangel holding out for God to show up and prove everyone else wrong. Most saw the dour archangel's presence the main reason for the nervous prophet's drinking problem. While an excellent source for the whereabouts and on goings of the divine, Chuck was hard to find, the squirrelly prophet constantly on the move which made him irritatingly hard to pin down or locate at times. His most devout follower and scribe, Becky Rosen, could be contacted though for assistance.

Out of all the hunters though, when shit really hit the fan, when the hopeless needed salvation, when the desperate called out justice and vengeance, there was only one name that was whispered in equal amounts of prayer and fear.

Winchester.


	2. Chapter 2

The Winchesters became legends in their own time, cutting a bloody path of righteous vengeance a mile wide through a world of corpses. Their story was an enduring tale of spilled blood, the quest for vengeance, and all the fallout that came from that sort of existence. Despite the size of its notoriety. the infamous Winchester clan was small, comprised of the patriarch John Winchester and his three sons from oldest to youngest Dean, Sam, and Adam.

The Winchester saga began with Dean and Sam's mother, Mary, who had been born a Campbell. Despite her upbringing and her fate, Mary hated being a hunter and decided to retire from the lifestyle to be with John who was of lineage in his own right. The Winchesters were some of the last few surviving members, as well as a notable family, of the Men of Letters. It was a surviving secret society of sorcerers and the keepers of sacred, ancient lore and artifacts.

Neither family approved of the union but young love prevailed and the star crossed lovers were wed, deserting their respective destinies. When Mary got pregnant, the newlyweds settled in one of the smaller yet safer cities in the state formally known as Kansas. John found employment as a mechanic's blacksmith, using his family's arcane knowledge to make rusted out, useless cars a viable mode of transportation again by making the vehicles run all on their own with the use of sigils carved into the metal and numerous talismans worked in along side all the moving parts. John's greatest achievement he kept for himself, resurrecting a 1967 Chevrolet Impala back to life in gleaming black and chrome cherry condition. In what passed for normalcy in this ruined world, the little family grew and thrived, two becoming four soon enough with the arrival of their sons, Dean and then a few years later Sam. For a while, they were happy.

That all changed one fateful night when a yellow eyed demon came to collect on an old Campbell family debt. The secrets of the Campbells ran deep and it was a fate that Mary had sought to keep from John and avoid by ignoring it. In the end though, she died for her folly, cut down and burned alive, her youngest child forever changed and tainted right before her dying eyes. Mary's pyre destroyed the family, nearly taking her husband and sons with it. Thinking quick, John shoved Sam into his brother's arms as he told his oldest to run, Dean holding his baby brother close as he watched their home burn down to its foundations and their father emerge from it with empty arms and dead eyes.

They survived. Warped, made wrong by it, but survived. From that point on, John changed and for the worse, he took the world along with him for the ride.

Childhood became for other people, Dean and Sam raised from that point on to be warriors, learning the ins and outs of weapons before other children their age had bothered memorizing their ABC's. The Impala became their new home and playground, their entire world consisting within its confines of blessed and protected metal.

Magic of the blood could not be denied though, at least not for very long, Dean having more innate affinity for the metalwork than John. Eventually he was forced to give up the Impala completely to Dean, the black beast of a car listening solely to his oldest son after his sixteenth birthday. The Impala would only respond to him, Dean naming the car Baby.

While Dean's talents seemed to lie more with the GITM, the older Winchester able to assemble and disassemble tech at will to do his bidding, Sam's own powers manifested strangely in the form of telekinesis, prophetic dreams, and blood warding magic. Despite John's reservations on the matter, Sam took to studying with the Men of Letters, making contact with them wherever and whenever he could. It was through their learning that he discovered that Sam was tainted with demon blood.

Years later, their half brother Adam joined the family business, his mother eaten by ghouls. At that point it would became apparent that all of John's intimate relationships were cursed and doomed to die horrible and unusual deaths. Despite being born a Mulligan, Adam was all Winchester done to the core, mental baggage included. His own powers were more of the healing variety which were beneficial in the long run. Hunting was hard on a body and finally having a healer on hand was a very welcome thing indeed.

The Winchesters had no demons and no angels to aid them. John wouldn't stand for it.

Dean was not John though so when an opportunity presented itself, he took it…

…and that is where all their new trouble in a lifetime composed of and cursed with strange occurrences and mishaps began…..


	3. Chapter 3

AN- I have no idea what I am doing. :P

LOL Deal with it. :)

"Angels are watching over you."

It was one of the few things that Dean could remember his mother telling him. It was like a promise and a prayer all in one to him and it was something at weighed on his mind in the years after her death. The want for an angel turned into a gnawing need for one each and every time the hunter encountered a bound celestial being with another hunter. Something about them called out to him. Whether it was the way they moved or talked or even simply existed, Dean wasn't sure. He just always found himself drawn to the angels, to the point that Jo had banned him from talking to Anna whenever the Winchester visited the Roadhouse because he proved himself such a nuisance.

The universe loved a good joke and never seemed to tire whenever it came to pulling one over on the Winchesters. Case in point, Sam and Dean had been on a basic salt and burn when they happened upon a small family being terrorized by demons. After a long and bloody battle, the Winchesters found themselves in the presence of just one vessel but two. The Novaks had been in hiding for quite some time, Jimmy and his daughter Claire targets for anyone seeking to capture an angel. After the rescue, an understanding and a deal were struck.

"Last chance to back out.", Dean offered, just touching the tip of the blade to Jimmy's bare chest but refrained from pressing down. He still needed to carve the binding sigil into the vessel's flesh, the one that would fasten the angel to the meat. It didn't need to be deep but it was hardly going to be pleasant for Jimmy.

"Quit wasting time and get it over with.", Jimmy glared, somehow managing to look intimidating despite being staked out and tied down spread eagle naked with his legs splayed wide open, his hole glistening with lube in the firelight. The pair were currently in one of the vast wastelands of the Frontier, protected by rings of salt and chains of iron laid into the ground. Sam was busy relocating the rest of the Novaks to one of the safe houses owned and operated by the Fitzgerald's family, where Claire could grow up protected, her secret safe.

Taking the other man's consent to heart, Dean shrugged, pressing the razor's edge into the pale man's flesh. To his credit, Jimmy didn't scream, nerekt clenching his sharp and shadowed jaw as he watched Dean draw out the symbols in his skin with a razor's edge.

"Well, that was unpleasant.", Dean murmured when he was done, throwing knife aside. For defense or protection, the weapon would do him little good on what they were about to summon.

"Understatement.", Jimmy snapped, letting his head fall back as he made his muscles relax.

"I hate to break it to you but it's about to get a hella lot worse.", Dean said in a flat tone of finality. He was a good enough person to offer Jimmy one last out. The man was about to sign his own death warrant after all.

"Protect my family. Hide my daughter.", Jimmy said without hesitation, glaring up at the hunter. "Make this all worth it."

"You have my word.", Dean dry swallowed hard as Jimmy closed his eyes. Dean wished he could have done the same, the hunter standing ready. He invoked the sigil, pressing his hand to the man's bleeding chest while speaking a word of ancient power, one the call of which that could not be ignore even by a being of heaven. It was a demand, a plea, a command, and a prayer all in one.

Mutually holding their breath, hunter and vessel waited, the still of the coming night broken only by the music of bug songs. The stage was set, holy oil soaked into the dirt around them, ready and waiting to be lit. The meal of fastening was set off to the side well within reach, a glass of sweet dark wine blessed and a loaf of bread thoroughly soaked in Dean's blood. Both bodies were prepped, Jimmy's hole stretched by his own hand and Dean's erection already hard and pressing against the confines of his jeans thanks to copious amount of Viagra. Beyond the words and blood, the exchange of certain bodily fluids were necessary to capture an angel in chains stronger than steel or iron and subjugate it.

They didn't have to wait long.

The night lit up like the day as a comet made of shattered starlight, blue lightening, and a pure unadulterated power borne of celestial fury and intent descended upon them. It made all of Dean's hair stand on end, the hunter watched unflinching as a star fell from the heavens toward them. It flooded in upon them in a wash of sheer, eye aching bright bluish white light, kicking up dust spirals in its plunge. The impossible amount of supremacy was forced to fold in upon itself time and time again into a shell of fragile flesh, Jimmy screaming as he was burned away by the new occupant in and of his body, an angel being bound to a body of man beyond just the cellular level. It was like catching a hurricane with a butterfly net and chaining it to earth with strands of spider web silk.

Dean knew it was all done and over with when he was assaulted with the complete silence of the world holding its breath, the abruptness of it nearly making him fall over. The sudden dark was just as unsettling, the light receding inwardly and resolving itself into the being who had once been Jimmy Novak- someone's son, brother, husband, father, It opened its human eyes for the first time to meet Dean's own. The hunter lit the oil ring without hesitation and started to strip down.

Manifested into this plane of existence, the angel's wings were pressed down into the red earth, the feathers looking made of fire opals and bits of midnight but with the rainbow fluidity of an oil slick. It seemed sacrilegious to have such magnificent plumage being soiled with a substance as mundane as dirt but it was necessary. Dean grimaced, letting the last of his clothing fall away in a careless pile beside him, his bare flesh goose bumping from the slight night's chill.

Though still in shock, the newly trapped angel managed to see the holy oil's flame, recognizing it for what it was and the danger it represented. With growing despair, the stranded being could smell the sweetness blessed wine and the iron tang of blood soaked bread. It took in Dean's nude form leaning in over its prone, trussed up own. The hunter's erection was already pressed up to a door of tender flesh, willingly made slick and ready by the former occupant of the vessel and ready to breach. The angel knew what it all meant, what was about to happen to it.

Dean didn't known what kind of reaction he had been expecting. Anger, rage perhaps. The fear that filled those eyes unexpectedly though was something Dean could have never imagine an angel of all things being able to feel. The hunter found that the reaction was far too human for his liking. The cutting sorrow shadowing it was just as piercing to him.

It was enough to take Dean's breath away, the hunter abandoning his stance to fall away off to the side and shuffle awkwardly away, hugging as close to the fire as he could without being burned by it. From there, he watched entranced as tears slid from the angel's eyes, the crystalline orbs bluer than they had any right to be. For the life of him, Dean could not remember if Jimmy's eyes had been that naturally azure in color or if the angel's presence was simply making them so.

The angel's tangible terror and sorrow made Dean's stomach drop, hitting gut bottom with a overwhelming feeling of disgust for himself. Ignoring his chemically induced hard on, Dean pulled on his clothing faster than he had ever done so before in his life, with such haste he tore the material and left his boots untied, his mind working a mile a minute as he avoided looking directly at the angel. He wouldn't do this….couldn't do this…...not now, not ever. It didn't feel right.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Dean risked another look at the angel now that he was fully dressed and immediately regretted it. The angel stared back at him wetly, too quiet, too sad, and so resigned to its fate it was gut wrenching. The being watched Dean with confused wide eyes as it continued to cry silently. It was enough to make Dean to start cussing softly at himself as he kicked the wine over and throwing the bread away beyond the ring of fire.

If he was going to do this, Dean knew he had to be quick about it, the hunter cutting his arm open to collect the blood in the now empty glass. Using his fingers, he painted a hasty banishing symbol on the dusty earth, the dry soil greedily absorbing the red, turning it into sticky mud. The angel watched him work wearing a blank expression now, though its trepidation was still evident as its wings continued to tremble every few seconds, making a dry noise that worked Dean down to his last nerve. Gritting his teeth to keep focused on the task at hand, Dean found it was disconcerting to be regarded so intensely, the angel's too blue eyes never leaving his face.

"What's your name?", Dean asked as he bled and worked to break the terrible silence between them. The question was only meant for some sort of distraction. He felt that any explanation he could try to give would just seem trite and insulting to the other being.

"Castiel.", said the angel in a voice made of gravel and smoke, its first spoken words on this plane of existence.

"Holy hell, that's a mouthful.", Dean said, stomping out a section of the holy ring as he slammed his hand down on the sigil. "Castiel, I'm sorry about all this."

The banishing sigil sent the angel far, far away just like it was supposed to, giving Dean some breathing room to work with. It wasn't a good plan but it was the only one that Dean could come up with where he lived just a while longer. An angel was now on earth, bound to the flesh of a vessel. It would probably be wanting some sort of vengeance for that kind of inconvenience.

Sighing, Dean dug out his phone from his pocket as he started to make him way back to the Impala. "So Sammy….Know any angel protection spells?"


	4. Chapter 4

Dean was dieing.

The hunter was being killed ugly and slow, one peeled back strip of skin at a time. He could feel it, knew it but he sure as hell wasn't about to let the demons get in the last word in on it though. If Dean was going out, he was going to take out all of the evil bastards with him. He had a plan. It was a shitty plan but then admittedly, most of them were. It was like a Winchester prerequisite, the family business practically based and built on it.

"Going to make you beg Winchester.", said one of the demons, licking its lips in a manner that suggested blood, pain, and humiliation on all sorts of gruesome levels. Dean hadn't planned taking on so many demons by himself but as fate would have it, the brothers had stumbled upon a town in the midst of a gruesome siege. For whatever reason, the dark eyed denizens of Hell seemed committed to erasing this small back water collection of sun bleached building that could be laughing called a town on a good day from existence. While doing reconnaissance of the situation, Sam and Dean had found the last few survivors, mostly children, huddled in the remains of a church, praying to a god that wasn't accepting their collect calls for love or money.

When it came down to brass tacks, the Winchesters had a life time of experience making the hard calls, the type that would make lesser people turn and run. The brothers knew that they could rescue what was left of this town, but someone would have to stay behind to act as a distraction to do it. Dean wasn't about to let Sam throw his life away so after shoving a weeping child into Sam's arms to keep him busy, Dean loaded his guns and ordered his younger brother to take care of the Impala and not die. To his credit and satisfaction, Dean had made a hell of a distraction, using some cleverly placed explosives of blessed salt and consecrated silver as shrapnel to catch the demons' attention and hold it solely to him. The hellspawn that survived the barrage, which was way more than Dean would have liked, were quite eager to express their feelings about the matter by carving it into his flesh.

"Beg? You kicky bastard. I don't swing that way.", Dean smirked, shooting his audience a cheeky wink. He somehow found enough strength to pull off the angel warding talisman from around him neck with what was left of his right hand in a pained gesture of splintered bone and shredded tendon. The demons hadn't bothered binding his arms or legs, liking the sick pleasure that came from the hunter knowing that he was powerless to defend himself while among their greater numbers.

It wasn't much to look at, the ward worn almost completely smooth from time and handling, its surviving details darkened with engrained everyday filth. The pale talisman was hidden in among the other protective charms that the hunter wore. Bobby claimed it was carved from the thigh bone of some long forgotten saint and would hide him from all eyes of Heaven. That and he was idjit for needing in the first place.

Dean didn't know it were true or not, but it had kept his wandering angel from finding him. He hoped it didn't have any lingering residual effects. Dean didn't fancy being killed at such a deliberate slow pace for some asshat demon's amusement so he decided to hurry the process along. "Sorry, but I'd rather pray.", he whispered, pushing air through a ruined throat to splatter the cracked red dirt beneath him with darker crimson wetness. Dean was amazed that he had any blood left in his body to do so with.

"You can try, Winchester. Haven't you heard though? God is dead.", said the demon holding the long silver blade that he had been using to flay the skin from the hunter's arm in long dangling ribbons of meat.

"Like I'd waste my time on him.", Dean laughed, the sound rough, low, and thoroughly nasty. "Castiel.", the hunter prayed, the name more reverently spoken than any before it. Dean didn't really believe in anything but one's own personal need for vengeance. That seemed to be the one unifying factor among all beings above, below, and everywhere else in between.

The demons were unimpressed by it, the black eyed bastards moving in for the kill like jackals tearing into a fresh corpse. Dean tried not to feel too disappointed. He was well familiar with the feeling, everyone in his life even his own family letting him down or flat out betraying him in some manner. Why would an angel be any different?

Putting on his game face, Dean smirked at the demons even as they leered down at him, his own blood still dripping off of their knives and fingers. He wasn't afraid to die and had always know he would leave this world in some dreadful manner. It was a hunter's lot in life. Dying peacefully of old age in one's sleep was not really an option in this business. Most hoped for a quick death and at best, a salt and burn burial with maybe some alcohol spilled in their name from their fellow hunters. At least Sam knew where his corpse would be, even if it was scattered half way across this baked patch of god forsaken desert. If nothing else, he could at least count on his brother to do that much for him.

Just as metal began to reenter the ruined surface of Dean's skin, all the demons froze as one like someone had flipped their off switch. He couldn't blame them for trying to imitate statues. The amount of power that was suddenly being pressed down upon them all made Dean want to imitate something inanimate as well. Something cosmic had just joined the party and it's presence alone was starting to make the finer pieces of loose stone and sand dance upon the desert's heated surface.

Credit had to be given where credit was due. Angels knew how to make an entrance. One moment, demons were cutting the nerve endings out of his muscles with his own knife and anything else they could find. The next, the hell spawn were screaming in high shrill voices marked with agony, dieing fierce and bright as Roman candles. The angel was lighting up the demons from the inside by simply laying his hands upon them. In awe, Dean watched as the angel moved swiftly through their scattering ranks, never wasting an action or movement. The ethereal being was all grace and pure intent as it killed with a touch and nary a backward glance. Keeping an eye cracked open, cause he really didn't have the strength to do much else, Dean looked up at the angel that now stood beside his soon to be corpse, fallen demons smoldering all around them making the air stink of burned flesh, boiled out eyeballs, and oddly enough electrical fire. Dean didn't think he had smelled anything sweeter in his life.

"About time. Any later and you wouldn't have gotten the chance to kill me yourself.", Dean managed to wheeze out through his blood stained teeth, his words rattling out weak. Castiel only tilted his head to the side in answer as he stared down at Dean with a quizzing expression on his too still features. Despite his waning consciousness, Dean noted the angel was dressed oddly enough in a dark suit with a tan trench coat worn over it. Quirking a small smile in amusement, Dean wondered briefly where the hell Castiel had found those relics and in such good condition before he dismissed the notion as unimportant. Considering he had more pending things to worry about like his own demise, the angel's fashion sense merited pretty low on the list.

"Well hurry up, you son of a bitch. I'm not dying any quicker.", Dean sighed, feeling his breath shorten and strain in what was left of his lungs. The demons had already had some fun with his organs. Not many knew what their pancreas looked like outside the confines of their own body. Dean wished he was still among that majority.

"You called me here to kill you?", Castiel's voice sounded almost incredulous to him. It was also still all made of whiskey soaked gravel, like the angel was unused to human vocal chords as a means of communication. He found it lovely to listen to despite its course texture, the rough tones doing warm tingly things to Dean's remaining insides. He blamed blood loss for having such girly sentiments affecting his thought processes.

"No. I called you here to kill all these demons and buy Sam some time to get everyone out. My death is just a bonus for you. Payment cause I owe you that much.", Dean corrected, gasping in pain, every intake of breath a small murder. It hurt to talk. Shit, it hurt to even to be alive any more. On top of that, he hadn't realized that death had a foul taste to go along with it, tangy sour that burned with a touch of iron in the aftertaste. Dean wished he could have some water. The last thing he wanted to taste before departing from this life was the sick of his own blood and fear.

"We need to talk.", Castiel said gravely, kneeling down in the dirt and looking effortless about it. Dean marveled at himself for noticing all the little details even as his vision began to fade out around the edges. The hunter found himself memorizing the way the trench coat gathered and wrinkled like a shroud all around the angel, noticing that the angel's blue tie was backwards and his pristine white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. He found himself liking the color of the angel's eyes best of all, all blue and glittering. They were more blue than Jimmy's had ever been in life, faceted and deeper than they had any right to be.

"Sure. Why not? I got all the time in the world.", Dean laughed or would have but the very idea of movement racked his body with a pain so sharp and sudden that it left him in a cold sweat and racked with muscle spasms as his body started to give up the ghost. Dean barely managed to shut his own eyes in time before he felt the last of his life leave his mangled body. He didn't think the angel would know enough about humans to close them for him.

And so Dean Winchester died in the red dirt with an angel of the Lord at his side.

oOo

Dean reopened his eyes in what felt like a second later…..at least he thought it was. Perhaps 'opening' was not the correct term for what he was experiencing or actually doing. He was not so much seeing as becoming more aware of his surroundings and even more so aware that he lacked a body now. As far as Dean could tell, he seemed to be composed of glowing light that was all gold and crimson energy interwoven together, made of braided darts of luminosity.

"Huh…", was Dean's reaction.

As he looked down at himself, Dean could tell he was in a vaguely humanoid shape and that notion for some reason was comforting though he wasn't sure why considering he looked like a drunk star that had more meandered down than fallen. After counting all his lack of toes and fingers, Dean took note of his surroundings or rather, the lack there of. He found he was at rest in what could only be deemed a void. It probably had some fancy word for it that Sam would know, but considering nothing was in it, he was going to go with void. Looking in what he could only assume was down, Dean saw that he was floating over an ice blue white surface that made the aura of his essence tingle pleasantly and spark whenever the two surfaces brushed up against each other. It took Dean a moment to realize that the platform he was ghosting over looked like the palm of a hand, a giant hand. Which meant it was attached to something or more correctly someone. If Dean had a throat, he would have dry swallowed or screamed. He felt either reaction was justified as he turned his awareness upward.

Way upward.

It belonged to a being so large he missed it at first entirely, like standing in front a tsunami at wave fall. It was made entirely of that cold ethereal light, towering over him impossibly far and wide. Wings that looked cut from star studded midnight stretched out like a ink and velvet horizon, framing a form that was appeared to be far too slender to exist in reality as Dean knew it and made of angles that looked impossibly graceful yet surreal in their composition. It should have come off seeming delicate, fragile looking even, but that was lost in translation in the face of such raw power being emitted.

A near featureless face peered down at Dean, making the hunter shrink. It's facial structure was all smooth lines, broken only by a pair of eyes like barely contained supernovas, the darting energies within them swirling bright and wild. A crown of sort hovered over its head, the spikes of it made of a cold and vicious light that burned more like the smooth fluidity of plasma than the jagged dance of flame. As he tried to collect his wits and at least figure where the hell he was, Dean was content to observe until he realized there was more than one face staring down at him. The face he saw was merely a focal point of sorts, one facet in a gem that held hundreds of other, all of which were focused on him. Hundreds upon hundreds of eyes, in all different shapes, forms, colors, and sizes were turned toward Dean, making the essence of his being waver in an all out cringe.

Steadying himself the best he could and not knowing how he was doing it without a body, Dean realized that the being was studying him back, holding the hunter in the palm of its hand like he was a curious thing, an interesting bug that had somehow managed to land on its hand. Needless to say, it was very disconcerting and made the hunter want even more to curl up on himself and hide. As he contemplated his imminent death or whatever the hell this was cause Dean was pretty damn sure he had already died bloody, it dawned on him that he actually recognized this creature. Those eyes, infinite and radiant with cosmic power, were the same shade of blue Dean had seen before while he still wore flesh.

Castiel.

It was Castiel, the angel of Thursday.

Somehow, Dean just knew it was him and decided that he was nine ways fucked because of course, that was his luck. "I thought you would be taller.", Dean whipped, not sure how he was forming words without lips or a body, and projecting them without vocal cords. Technical difficulties aside, the hunter figured if he was going to smited that he might as well go out in style.

"My true form is a wavelength of celestial intent and would have overwhelmed you.", Castiel said, his voice reminding Dean of cold night rain hitting frost bitten winter earth, of white capped salt water waves curling in upon themselves in endless turquoise tunnels, of the whispers of firefly wings in humid, muggy dark. It was eerily quiet but yet all encompassing. Trying desperately not to over think it (him not having a brain at the moment and how was he even thinking without it), Dean knew he was experiencing the angel's voice instead of merely just hearing it which was a good thing Dean considered, remembering that he didn't have ears at the moment either.

"So I'm dead?", Dean asked and that was weird too. It was like the voice in his head that was him was speaking for him now, sounding like him when he was alive but not. Dean wondered if it was possible for a blob of energy to get a migraine.

"Mostly. It will take me a moment to reverse all the considerable damage to your body.", Castiel said solemnly. That was an answer Dean never expected.

"You're healing me? Why are you doing that?", cause Dean had to look that gift horse square in the mouth and pick at its teeth.

"As I have already stated, the damage to your body is extensive. I can not place your soul back into it as of yet.", Castiel loomed, sounding incredibly impartial about whole ordeal, like he was gluing a vase back together because it was something for him to do.

"No, damn it. That's not what I meant.", Dean gritted the teeth he didn't have. Being all glowy and bodiless was really starting to piss him off. The core of him remembered a lifetime of habits and tried to reenact them. The most he seemed able to do was shimmer and flicker in places brighter like a giant freaking glowworm. "Why would you bother, is what I'm trying to find out. What's the point?".

"The point?" was the confused answer. For the first time since finding himself to be a mess of glowing star stuff, the angel seemed at a loss on how to answer the hunter.

"Yeah. Aren't you pissed as shit at me? Why go through all the hassle of healing me, when you are just gonna smite me?", Dean shrugged, moving what he deemed to be his shoulders.

"Did you not want to bond with me? To form an alliance?", Castiel asked, lowered his head closer to examine Dean, all those eyes bearing down on him like a force unto itself. It made the hunter fall over which was an odd sensation to do as an energy form as he rolled around in Castiel's palm like a pill bug.

"Well yeah, but I figured that was off the table a long time ago.", Dean tried to keep his shape and not become formless again as he sat up. It was harder than he thought it would be though with that much heavenly intent staring down at him.

"All you had to do was ask. Your form of bonding is flawed and weak in composition. It is also like slavery to us. You did not choose this path though.", Castiel intoned, drawing back finally. Dean would have let out of a sigh of relief if he could. "Ours will be a profound bond, unbreakable by heaven or hell.".

It took a moment but eventually the gist of the angel's words sunk in, making the hunter openly scoff. "Yeah right.", Dean snapped, his new body crackling.

"Why do you see yourself unworthy of salvation?", Castiel asked, his head, or more accurately heads, tilting to the side ever so slightly in bemusement. "Good things do happen."

"Not in my experience.", Dean muttered, bitterly enough that even he heard it. "I-I….I tried to bind you….."

"But you did not.", Castiel interrupted to point out.

"I'm not a good person. Why the hell would an angel want anything to do with me?", Dean glared the best he could. He noticed that he was smoldering a more intense scarlet. He figured that would have to do at the moment.

It didn't have the result he was expecting. "Your soul says otherwise. It burns with the light and power of a Righteous Man.", Castiel practically hummed with as odd pleasing sound, "It is quite beautiful to behold."

"What the hell? Righteous…?", Dean stammered, staring up at the angel incredulously. While Dean was having all these revelations, the angel just seemed content to loom over him rather than make conversation. The hunter didn't know what to make of the compliment, so he ignored it for now, focusing on other things.

"Will it hurt?", Dean eventually asked, unable to take the angel's loaded silence any longer.

"I do not know. I perceive pain differently from you and it has been a great while since anything of this nature has been attempted. Details are sparse at best, even among the Host.", Castiel said, sounding utterly indifferent about the entire undertaking which did nothing to alleviate Dean's anxiety.

"Awesome. That sounds reassuring. I'm a science experiment.", Dean sighed, because why should his death be any different than his life. "Well, all my best ideas have been half assed so why not this one too. Let's do this.".

"Dean Winchester, do no make this decision flippantly. The bond between us will be nothing like your own pitiful version of binding. When I speak of profound, I mean it in every sense of the work. It is one that will remain with you in life and continue even beyond your physical death. You and I will be linked Grace and soul until the end of time, so I must ask this again of you. Do you still wish to continue forward with this?", Castiel said, "You still have the choice of entering heaven and collecting your eternal reward for a lifetime of good deeds and service to your fellow man.".

"Do I get any perks being chained to a comet?", Dean grimaced. This was beginning to sound like a horrible idea, even more so than usual, but going to heaven didn't sit well with him either. It felt like he was giving up if he did that, especially if he was being presented an option to get back in the game of life.

"Perks? I do not understand.", Castiel sounded miffed, the angel's confusion making Dean glow momentarily gold with amusement.

"Perks. The silver lining. Benefits.", Dean clarified. "What would I get out of our bond? What is in it for me?".

"Your vessel will heal more efficiently. I am remaking your body so that will be stronger, faster, and less liking to take damage. Aging will cease as well, all your cells renewed continually by my Grace. You will be able to sense evil while in near proximity to it and will know demons by their true face…", Castiel started to rattle off.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Are you trying to tell me that you're making me an immortal badass?", Dean interrupted, his being pacing across the angel's palm. This whole thing was being to sound too good to be true.

"No. You can still be killed. It will just take more effort on your opponent's part. When you eventually do die, you will be bound to my Grace in Heaven. Your heaven will be my heaven, your essence mine.", Castiel said solemnly.

"Sounds kinky. Why would you want….my essence?", Dean ventured, not liking where this line of talk was going. Yeah, owning essence didn't sound weird at all or anything.

"Angels watch, Dean. We observe. We rarely get to experience though. We understand everything to its basest level but do not interact with any of it. To have open access to a lifetime of experiences is highly desired."

So….I'm your fix? Human souls are like angel acid? That's ….that's just great.", Dean muttered dryly. "Anyway, are you going to light this candle or what?"

"Am I to assume you still wish to proceed despite all that you know now?", Castiel said slowly. If Dean had to wager a guess, he would have to say that the angel sounded vaguely amused for some reason that was beyond him.

"I'll be alive to gank some more evil bastards and as long as I don't let them end me first, I avoid becoming angel crack. Got it. Sounds awesome.", Dean The angel regarded him for so long Dean wondering if Castiel was starting to reconsider his own offer.

"So be it."

Dean's soul clung to its platform as it suddenly shifted, moving forward to what passed as the angel's chest cavity, the likes of which were beginning to open up like a strange budding flower in a wash of bright white light, a swirling vortex of a storm that was all pull and no sound. If Dean still had eyes, he was sure they would have burned out by now by that holy star fire.

"Holy hell! What the hell are you doing?!" Dean yelled, making the tendrils of his soul curl around fingers that were wider than Redwoods.

"Beginning and ending the last stage of the ritual. I have already finished reconstructing your body and have marked it accordingly. All that is left is to meld your soul to my Grace. Please hold still. This might be painful." was the last thing Dean heard before he was plunged into the angel's body, all that was he was being pressed into the heart of the star that was Castiel.


	5. Chapter 5

AN- Sorry about the wait. Shit and life happens.

oOo

To the hunter's immediate surprise, Dean noted it didn't hurt. Quite the opposite in fact. What he assumed what would be a burning hot sensation of marrow melting type pain was merely warm and all encompassing, like tepid bath water lapping all over the surface of the skin he didn't have at the moment. Fascinated, Dean watched as the golden red edges of his soul began to meld with the shards of the icy white light that made up Castiel. It took a moment for Dean to realize that the warmth from the star stuff he was experiencing, melting into was the angel's purity, that it was love and power in its most shining form. It felt like the apple pie life and coming home…..

Dean violently recoiled from the light, drawing all that he was back into a small ball of red gold as Grace tendrilled loose and confused all about him, looking for a way back in, like an octopus fumbling at a bottle looking for the cork. Left to float in a sea of light that poked and prodded at him relentlessly, Dean fought back with all that he was, steeling himself to the soft sensations that lingered over him, lapping at his outer shell that hissed and sizzled with contact. Astonishment and resolve washed over and through him all at once as powers greater than his own suddenly pressed down on the outer walls of his being, his soul beginning to crack under the pressure.

Dean screamed, his soul crying out….

….and then everything was gone.

The hunter found himself inexplicably sitting in a garden on a well manicured lawn, watching an older gentleman fly a kite. If that wasn't surprising enough, Dean realized that he was doing it very naked and that the blades of grass cutting into his ass cheeks felt very real as well.. Luckily for him, kite flying guy didn't seem to care or even notice that Dean was there having problems with his perceived reality or lack of attire.

"Where the hell am I?", Dean asked out loud, jumping at the sound of his own voice. It was his real voice and not his 'in head' voice. And there was that migraine of thinking esoterically again.

Thankfully, the kite enthusiast continued to ignore him while the hunter had a small existential meltdown and a part of Dean was still very fine with that. Since nothing was trying to kill or absorb him or do anything else weird to him, Dean chose to remain where he was until he could figure a few things out as the grass softly presenting itself into places it really shouldn't. He valiantly resisted the urge to scratch the underside he now had again, Dean pleased and annoyed at the sensation for just being there.

"This is the heaven of an autistic man. He enjoyed warm weather and kite flying." said a familiar voice that had once belonged to Jimmy Novak though it was pitched much lower than Dean ever remembered the human using it. Dean was glad he was already sitting down because he would have jumped out of his skin upon finding the angel standing right next to him, conveniently clothed in his strange choice of trench coat and dark suit. "This is my memory of it. I find it a nice space to think."

"Well, that's just fantastic. Why am I here, damn it?! Even better question, why am I naked!?" Dean snapped, gesturing down to himself and quite fed up with everything being on so many different levels. Death was supposed to be easy or was at least rumored to be. Of course being a Winchester, Dean should have known that the Grim Reaper wouldn't let him take the easy way out.

"I thought that this environment would be preferable for your unsettled mental state. " Castiel grumbled, like Dean was causing him a minor inconvenience of some sort. "I am trying to bond with you by your leave. Why are you resisting me? You risk damaging or even destroying your soul by doing so."

"I wasn't…" Dean started to argue to be glared into silence by eyes like novas.

"You were. You fought back. It was surprising and somewhat painful." Castiel snapped, the admittance causing real emotion to flood into his voice, seemingly like for first time. Too bad it was anger, Dean reflected to himself. The husky tones in which Castiel was using Jimmy's voice in were doing pleasant things to long ignored parts of Dean's psyche.

"Painful? How the hell can I hurt an angel? I don't or else I didn't even have fingers." Dean huffed in disbelief, tapping down urges before they became physically evident as well.

"We are at my center, in the very heart of my Grace. We are attempting to accomplish something that has not been risked in over a millennia. It would be preferable if you chose to help me instead of hindering my efforts on this matter." Castiel continued to growl out his words, making Dean wet his lips and really wish that he had pants on as he crossed his legs in a vain attempt to hide his growing chub.

"Fair enough. Unknot your panties there, sunshine, and tell me what to do then." Dean grunted, debating with himself whether or not to get up. Maybe he could go stand behind a bush or something. Kite guy was still there, smiling absently upward at his heart's desire.

"Must be nice." Dean sighed to himself. He already missed the Impala.

"Stop fighting me. If you truly want this, cease." Castiel said, distracting Dean from his thoughts, odd bodily reactions to gravel and whiskey tones of voice, and regrets about his car. Sam was so not going to properly take care of his Baby. They said that they can't take it with you but Dean was wondering if he should have at least checked. Maybe there was a loophole…

Shaking his head to clear out thoughts of Sam disobeying the car rules, hunter considered the angel's words with more care than he usually did with other people's. "I don't know if I can promise that. It's too much. It's all too much. Can you understand that?" Dean said finally, at a loss. His entire life had been a battle, a lesson in survival from start to finish and now this angel was talking about getting all touchy feely, huggy bear on him. Holy hell, no. He may be dead but he didn't do feelings.

"Why is forgiveness so hard for you to accept?" Castiel asked, the question like a physical blow, making the hunter flinch. It was asked so openly though. Try as he could, Dean could detect no mockery within its confines.

"Because…" Dean trailed off, looking away to start pulling grass out of the ground. Real or not, it was calming.

"That is not an answer." Castiel prompted, ending Dean's childish attempts at deflection. He knelt down beside Dean, still managing to loom.

"Because I don't deserve it, damn it! I'm screwed up and seven types of crazy. Is that what you wanted to hear? Can't you do this whole bond thing without all the feeling crap?" Dean muttered, his fingers curling into the soft grass and earth to start pulling up clumps of the vegetation, ruining the perfection of the manicured lawn. "Seriously, can we make Uncle Creepy go away? He's really starting to freak me out and I'm still naked."

"Neither of your concerns are real." Castiel told the hunter, sounding miffed about Dean's anxiety.

"I don't give a shit. I don't want him seeing my junk, real or not." Dean snapped, done with his needs being thought of as trivial. The kite enraptured man disappeared from view in immediate answer, Dean sighing in relief at his departure. He noted that the angel was still managing to loom while crouched over him so Dean glared openly over at the angel make him back off.

Dean ended up inadvertently staring up into surreal blue eyes that were too close to him, the held look soul deep and burning the hunter to his wick. The moment was broken as Castiel shifted to sit down in front of Dean, the hunter scooting back away and fast, getting a grass burn on his butt for his troubles. Not one to be detoured, Castiel grabbed the hunter by the ankle to easily pull him back.

"Where are you going?" Castiel asked, looking miffed enough to go all the way back to stoic. "You are in me. I do not understand your need for escape, especially when there is none obviously available."

"Don't sugar coat it or anything." Dean grumbled. There was truth in the angel's words, coldly stated and absolute of course.

"Dean, I can not stop this process now. We are too deeply entrenched to do so. By your own free will, you gave me consent and I have already begun. To cease our efforts now would be detrimental." Castiel said blandly as if they were discussing the current weather condition and not an angelic contract of soul bonding which may or may not tear Dean's soul apart.

"What would happen?" Dean licked his lips, grateful to have them again. It really was the little things in life….death….whatever. Hello again, migraine. Existential thinking was a bitch.

"I would recover and would simply return to Heaven but my Grace would end up crushing your soul out of existence." Castiel admitted with a bluntness that Dean was beginning to expect. "To put it into terms that you can grasp, if I were to stop my efforts and let you go now, it would be like your earth's moon hurtling itself into your solar system's sun."

"Crap. That good, huh?" Dean grunted, his brows jumping up to meet his hairline. "Can you do it here?", he asked, after some quick thought.

"The bond? Yes, of course I can." Castiel nodded. "Why?"

"And you just need me to stop fighting…." Dean ignored the angel's question, trying to catch the idea forming in his head by its tail.

"Yes, that would be preferable if you wish to remain existing." The angel said a touch dryly in Dean's opinion. Maybe the angel had a sense of humor after all.

Shoving his doubts and fears aside before they got the better of him, Dean closed the distance between them quickly, pressing an open mouthed kiss to Castiel's full lips. They were just as soft as Dean thought they would be as he ran his tongue over angel's plush bottom lip. The hunter stopped though when he realized that Castiel wasn't kissing him back. Moving back just far enough so that they could look each other in the eye, Dean found the angel to be deep in thought and much to his relief, his expression was contemplative instead of angry or insulted. Dean hoped that the option of smiting was off the table for now.

"You wish to…fornicate?" Castiel ventured, curiously touching his newly moistened lips with light fingertips, his blue eyes wide with honest question.

"Wow, you're a natural born sweet talker. Way to set the mood." Dean griped, working with what he was given. He tried not to think about how he was probably Castiel's first kiss, among a long series of other firsts or how striking the angel was. He didn't need that kind of pressure. Tugging at the trench coat, Dean found he met with little resistance as he removed the outer garment down past Castiel's shoulders to reveal more of the dark suit underneath. It was a wasted effort he realized belated as Dean found himself suddenly touching bare skin, all of the angel's clothing gone in the blink of an eye. "I want us to do it. The bond, everything but you have to let me wrap my head around this my way. I can deal with getting laid so let's just stick to that for now."

"Profound bonds go far beyond the physical act of coitus." Castiel said dismissively as he let himself be maneuvered beneath Dean with all the grace of a mannequin.

"Do you have to keep calling it that?" Dean sighed, working hard to move Castiel in a position he could comfortably work. The angel's flesh seemed to have all the flexibility of setting concrete covering in skin though. With some effort, he finally managing to get Castiel underneath him so that Dean could straddle him mid-waist with his knees digging into the soft grass on either side of the angel.

"You will need to submit to me completely.", Castiel said at last, his tone level and disturbingly even though he hesitated before he adding, "I will also remind you that this place is not real."

Letting the implication of the angel's words settle into his melon, Dean sighed, dropping his head to rest it on Castiel's shoulder. Of course he would have to bottom. This just kept getting better and better. "I know but it feels real enough to me. I can deal with this. It's all about setting. You know…..mood lighting, some ambience."

"I do not understand." Castiel stated without hesitation.

"You don't have to. Just shut up and fuck me.", Dean said bluntly, deciding to cut through the crap since subtlety and things like technique were obviously lost on the angel.

"I have no experience with the concepts of human intercourse.", Castiel admitted with an ease that would have embarrassed others.

"How do you keep coming up with the most unsexy words ever for such a beautiful act? Never mind, don't answer that." Dean bit back a grin because Castiel was funny whether he meant to be or not. Even though he already knew the answer, Dean asked anyway. "So you're a virgin?"

"I do not know why you find that amusing.", Castiel gave the hunter a strange look that somehow managed to remain fairly neutral and irked at the same time.

"Doesn't matter. I've worked with worse.", Dean broke out into an all out grin. "Well, we're both already naked so that's a good start. Can you imagine us up a mattress? I don't want grass crammed up where the sun don't shine and believe me angel or not, neither do you."

Feeling the earth move beneath his bare bottom, literally, Dean blinked and found himself staring at a motel bedroom and a really crappy one at that, the smell of mold and stale body order almost palatable. It was enough to even make the Roadhouse seem four star. "Wow, you really went all out. Thanks.", he said dryly. Apparently, sarcasm was not lost on angels, the hunter receiving a flat look back for Castiel.

"I have no basis of comparison to work off of. I am using images from your memory. If you find it an unsuitable surrounding for our fornication think of some place elsewhere you would rather be.", Castiel informed him, looking about the motel room like he had never seen one before, which in all fairness, Dean realized belated he probably hadn't.

"So you're telling me if I wish really hard, you can hocus pocus up something else?" Dean asked, glaring at the mildewed peeling paint. Damn, Sam and him had stayed at some nasty places.

"Certainly." Castiel nodded. Dean closed his eyes and tried to think of the fanciest place he had ever read about or seen.

"Oh hell yeah! Much better!", Dean grinned at the penthouse of his dreams that lay before them now.

"I fail to see the relevance of our surrounding for coitus." Castiel looked around as well, clearly unimpressed. Dean rolled his eyes at the under appreciation and the unflattering reference to what they were intending to do.

"First- don't ever refer to sex as 'coitus' again, and second- It's called thread count and believe me, it's important." Dean sighed happily as he fell face forward into the softest mattress he had ever dared fantasize about. Before he could revel, Dean felt the bed dip as the angel joined him on the bed, reminding him of what they had come here to do. Surprisingly enough, Dean turned to see the angel smiling down at him though, the edges of his lips turned up ever so slightly in an almost shy half smile. "What?"

"You are happy. It makes your soul glow like a nebula I once oversaw the creation of.", Castiel said softly, sounding almost wistful.

Unsure of how to respond or even sure if it was a compliment or not, Dean snorted. "Um, thank you?"

"Let us begin."

OOo

As all things went when it came down to the Winchesters and their shitty luck, things went awry.

"Skin, Cas! I need skin!" Dean wailed. Watching the golden glow of his soul dissipate in the glaring white of Grace was disconcerting, to put it mildly. To watch it without eyes was even more so. Dean wasn't given a lot of time to think about it though, alternate reality refitted back over his perception, one were skin was slick with sweat and he had the taste of Castiel's spit in his mouth, the angel covering his own again and very enthusiastically. It turned out after being given a taste of pressed flesh, Castiel was a natural for the carnal.

"Apologies. I find that my control is beginning to slip. This is very…..stimulating." Castiel murmured against Dean's lips, his azure eyes half lidded with lust and hazy with it. The hunter would have snorted out a snarky comment but Castiel was tipping his hips up into a new angle while bared down deep into him. It took all Dean had to just keep gripping the sheets and not let himself fly out of his own skin, in this case where it was actually an option, while gripped in the throes of pleasure.

"We gotta work on your pillow talk, angel face." Dean muttered out ending with a gasp as he wetted his lips. He could taste Castiel still on them. The angel was sweet, sweeter than anyone or anything had any right to be.

"Dean, Dean….I feel something is wrong! I feel…..confined." Castiel panted, above Dean, in him, all around him, pressing in and down and all the spaces in-between.

"Do you feel like you are about to explode?" Dean hazarded a guess of how the angel was feeling at the moment if him own bodily reaction was anything to go by.

"Yes, yes, yes…" Castiel sounded like he was begging for something he had no idea he wanted until now.

"That's normal. Run with it." Dean grinned, pressing their lips together in light kisses, Castiel too far gone to even really respond. His mouth, when he had one, hang open trying to drawn in sufficient air as he chased after the pinnacle of his pleasure.

"I do not understand." Castiel said, his voice rough and gravelly, almost sounding like he was close to sobbing or crying out.

"You will." Dean grinned, clenching down and thus tipping the scales. Too blue eyes opened wide in surprise and wonder, Castiel screaming Dean's name as he came. Trying not to drown in the sensation of being filled with something more than just semen and wet hear, Dean tried to follow the falling angel's note for ragged note as they experienced every orgasm Dean had ever had together, memories braided and woven and layered on top of each other, upon memory after memory until it was one solid core of whited out pleasure of every little death of the flesh.

It was the most beautiful thing he ever experienced Dean realized right before his consciousness faded out to nothingness.

oOo

Dean knew he must have blacked out at some point because when he became aware again it was pitch dark all around him. The hunter lay there for a moment, trying to collect some semblance of self and thought when he realized several things at once.

First and foremost, he was breathing, like actually taking in air though his lungs made of meat and that the air he was drawing into his non-hurting lungs was stuffy. Not only that though, it stunk of dirt, sour body odor, and old blood, his own presumably.

Secondly, he was no longer laying on a soft cushy bed if the little sharp rocks pressing into his lower back were any indication. Feeling around, Dean found that he was in a very small enclosed space, just slightly larger than the width and length of his body. Getting a really bad feeling, the hunter took stock of what he had on him and to his immense relief recognized the feel of his own clothing. Doing inventory, Dean quickly found all his hidden weapons, lock picks, and other gear still in place on his person but even more importantly, his silver lighter. With a quick flick, Dean confirmed his earlier suspicions as he stared up at the boards of a pine box.

It was a coffin.

"Son of a bitch!"


	6. Chapter 6

AN- this is complete for now. I'll come back to it later. Thanks for reading. I know it's been kinda weird.

oOo

Dean dusted off his clothing the best that he could. He thought he did a fairly good job of it considering he had just dug himself out of his own grave. Now that he could cross that off of his 'horrific things I never wanted to do' list, Dean looked around to find himself upright on a wide open prairie, all tall dead grass and sun cracked, hot baked earth. Apparently he had been buried out in the middle of 'fuck all' nowhere and 'damned if I know' somewhere.

"Cas?" Dean tried, his voice all scratchy from disuse and sudden bouts of surprised, enraged yelling that had come upon him from time to time after finding himself on the working side of a coffin. Needless to say, Dean hadn't been too happy about waking up in his own grave. Stupid angel.

Taking himself into consideration, Dean looked his body over. He seemed to be all in one piece which was a pleasant surprise considering the state he had been in last time he was upright and breathing. While Sam had herded the townsfolk away to safety, the demons had worked Dean over pretty good before he had called down the angel to smite the holy hell out of them and given up the ghost, but everything seemed to be in fine working order, factory new it would seem. All his fingers and toes were accounted for and even all his scars appeared to be erased off his skin. The only marks left on his body was his anti-possession tattoo over his heart and a swollen handprint branded into his left shoulder, the skin puffy and sore. It also seemed to be already healing though right before Dean's eyes, the crimson leaching out of the scarred flesh to a bone white that starkly stood out against his tan skin.

"Cas? Castiel?" Dean asked the empty spaces of the plains to no response from any member of the angelic host much less a certain angel with intense blue eyes and dark hair. After a tense moment of waiting, Dean rolled his eyes as he looked up toward the sky as if for answers to questions and patience he would not receive.

Given his options or lack there of, Dean let out a long sigh and started walking, following the glaring sun's path. All civilization, hopefully along with his brother and beloved car, lay in the West away from the ruin of what was once the East Coast. As the universe's crappy sense of humor would have it though, civilization found Dean first on the road in the form of a filthy highwayman who decided to pause just long enough in his travels to hold Dean up at gunpoint from atop his horse.

"Seriously? You're trying to rob me? Does it look like I have anything worth stealing, dip shit? I'm on foot with the clothes on my back, covered in a grave's worth of dirt. How the hell does any of that translate into 'worth my time' or 'profitable' to you?" Dean snarled, so over and 100% done with everyone's and everything's shit. He wished he could say he didn't remember life being this ridiculous but schmeh, Winchester luck at its best he supposed. Dean mused he really ought to have some t-shirts made up about it.

Not in on Dean's internal gripes with the fates-that-be, the highwayman grinned down at him with ruined, tobacco stained teeth, gesturing with his firearm in the universal signal to strip down. Arching a brow at him, Dean decided the guy had been out in the sun way too long.

"Kinky but I don't swing that way. You know what? Fuck this noise." Dean growled, grabbing the would be robber behind his wrist, twisted, and pulled. Unbalanced, the man went flying off of the horse to find himself disarmed and his own gun being pointed at his head.

"That's a mighty fine horse you got there. I think I'll be taking it along with whatever else you have on you." Dean grinned. The day was beginning to look up.

oOo

Dean's first stop to announce his arrival back to the land of the living was Bobby Singer, an old friend of the family. The man was like a second father to the Winchester boys and if anyone would know where Sam and his car was, Bobby would.

The Singers were the keepers of lore, secrets, and ancient knowledge, the levels of which remained unrivaled. It came at a price though as the last remaining member of the family will tell you if he felt like answering such a mundane question. Bobby Singer was the most skilled spell caster of a generation and fount of forgotten lore and ritual. He was also a shameless drunk and one hell of a paranoid bastard if one could believe Crowley, the demon king of the Crossroads, who also happened to be Bobby's bonded servant. No one knew how wily old hunter had managed that one and he wasn't telling. The Singer's home base was situated in what was left of South Dakota, the blessed and cursed property line circled with veins of iron, captured lightening, and salt.

Passing over the crackling perimeter unscathed, Dean was relieved that his password and blood sigil still worked, though he was partially surprised that it still did. Bobby might be a bit of a drunk (and really who could blame him considering their line of work) but he was smart with a healthy dose of paranoia that had kept him alive this long. Dean would have never figured him for a sentimental bastard.

"Surprise." Dean said when Bobby opened his front door. Dean made sure to keep his palms up, open, and away from his sides to show that he was unarmed and sort of harmless.

I don't…" Bobby gaped openly at him, taking in all the grave dirt that refused to come out of his clothing and the very much alive Dean Winchester standing on his porch with a hopeful expression on his face.

"Yeah, me neither…" Dean's word's stumbled over themselves, attempting and failing to explain his existence. "…but here I am…."

In in opinion, it was a good start but Dean never got to finish it, the hunter interrupted when Bobby lunged at him with a silver blade in hand. "Bobby! Its me!" Dean yelped, dodging and disarming the other hunter with a lot more effort than Dean would have cared to admit aloud to anyone. People could talk all they want about him but Bobby was still a tough old hunter.

"My ass!" Bobby snapped, going for another weapon. Dean was sure that he had several nasty things on his person and that this could go on all day if he let it. Dean was just grateful that Bobby hadn't resorted yet to incantations. Spending the rest of his life as something small, moist, and slimy did not sound appealing.

"Bobby! It's me, damn it!" Dean told him firmly, trying to stay calm as he debated with himself on whether or not to toss the knife aside. Bobby didn't look like he was about to give up the fight, already having another blade already in hand. This one had symbols etched into its metal though, so that meant Bobby was about to get serious and start casting some spells. "I'm not a shape shifter!"

"Then you're a reverent!" Bobby yelled, trying to go in for the kill again. Dean blocked his attack before putting some distance between them, holding up his borrowed knife against his arm.

"Then could I do this with a silver knife?" Dean said as he cut open his forearm. All Bobby's blades were silver, blessed, and spelled so the minor inconvenience of the wound was well worth proving his humanity. Nothing supernatural that they hunted would be able to handle them much less cut their skin with them without some sort of ill effect.

"Dean?" Bobby's eyes went wide in realization. To Dean's relief, Bobby was beginning to accept the truth standing right in front of him.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Dean snapped, letting some of his frustration out. It had been a rough week of travel on an irritable horse and no real answers about anything from anyone. He had tried calling Castiel a few more times, but no angel had shown up though for some much needed face time, not even so much as a damn feather. The handprint on his shoulder would burn from time to time but other than that, nothing.

"It's good to see you, boy, but how are you walking and talking? When he came back from that suicide run, Sam told us all that you were dead." Bobby seemed at a loss but at least he was putting away his weapon. Dean hesitantly did the same.

"I don't know. I woke up…" Dean started to say to be interrupted by a good measure of holy water being splashed into his face.

"I'm not a demon either you know." Dean sighed, turning his head to spit out blessed H2O. Tasted kind of stale in Dean's opinion.

"Sorry, can't be too careful." Bobby shrugged, putting away his flask, one of many. Too many in Dean's opinion. One of these days, a demon was going to get a face full of rotgut instead of holy water, but then again considering what Bobby drank on a regular basis, it might have the same effect. It was a running theory among some hunters that Bobby had discovered a ritual or spell to pickle himself.

"Well I could have told you that much, darling. It would appear that our once dearly departed dumbass has acquired himself an angel." said an accented voice that made Dean groan inwardly. How could he have forgotten? Wherever Bobby went Crowley was never too far behind him.

"What?" Bobby and Dean in unison but for far different reasons.

Dean recovered first to scowl at the crossroads demon. "Yeah, no shit. I was there."

"How the hell did you manage to pull that off? I thought you were still on heaven's hit list." Bobby snorted, giving Dean the once over. The hunter looked fine to him which was saying a lot considering it was a Winchester. Usually they showed up at his door a little bit more bloody, bruised, and mostly dead. It was a given that hunting was hard on a body but the Winchester always seemed to be ahead of the rest in that area, raising(or lowering depending on who was patching them up) the bar for it..

"Nope. Free and clean. No one's gunning for me except the usual monsters." Dean shrugged with a careless grin. It felt good to have that particular winged monkey off his back.

"I'll try to get a hold of Sam then. He was in Pontiac, Illinois last I heard." Bobby sighed. As happy as he was to see Dean, the old hunter knew what he had come here for. The Winchesters were nomadic lot, only checking in with the Roadhouse and him at the best of times.

"Last you heard? What the hell, Bobby?! You haven't been looking after him?! You know how he gets!" Dean growled, glaring at the older man. Whether he wanted to be or not, Bobby was the Winchester's boys rock, having spent more time with them than their own biological father. John had done his best but the loss of his wife had driven him to obsessive revenge, drink, and a special sort of madness that affected all others around him. The boys had stopped hunting with him years ago unable to take it anymore though they still accepted jobs from their wayward parent. Bobby had tried his best by giving Dean, Sam, and later, Adam safe refuge from it and a place to rest their heads when it all became too much. While Adam could be found at the Roadhouse offering his healing services to other hunters and helping the Harvelles out with the bar sometimes on busy nights, Sam and Dean rode together through thick and thin, for the most part living out of the Impala. Bobby doubted that any of the boys had laid eyes upon their father in years, John in the wind on an eternal hunt.

Out of the three, Sam took everything the hardest, his guilt streak miles long and it would seem ever growing. To some extent, he blamed himself for everything bad that had happened in their lives, even Mary's death though he had been a baby at the time. Being tainted with demon blood didn't help either or the fact whenever he used his powers, his eyes went black and void. The first time that it had happened, John had left the boys in Bobby's care for a couple of months without ever saying a word to them after almost shooting Sam in the face point blank. If Dean hadn't been there to physically put himself between them, Bobby was pretty sure John would have pulled the trigger.

So while Dean worked on cars and drank to forget, and Adam sulked but worked through his issues by mopping floor and slinging drinks, Sam would fall into deep depressions marked with bouts of insomnia that left him pale and shaking. Though he would never admit it, Sam needed the support of another and usually that support was Dean who believed whole heartedly that being his brother's keeper came before being his father's soldier any day.

"He hasn't been really talking to anyone since you died, son." Bobby said quietly though his words spoke volumes to Dean.

"Not even Dad?" Dean tested the waters of his family's situation.

"Stubborn fools." Bobby muttered more to himself than his company but continued. "John and Sam had a difference of opinion about the whole thing."

"Like what?" Dean asked, not liking the sound of this. The two had always butted heads but Dean couldn't figure out what there was to argue over about his death. It had been a job that had gone wrong. It happened in their world. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Sam said he did his best and John told him that he should have done better. Ended up calling Sam a monster. Three guess on how well that ended after that." Bobby sighed. "That's the long and short of it."

"Holy hell…" Dean felt like punching a wall. "Wait, just how long have I been gone?"

Given his current state and shitty mood, Dean had avoided other people like the plague and he hadn't felt like dealing with hassle of getting past the security measures of towns and villages.

"Four months." Bobby told him, reaching for a bottle of rotgut, from the looks of the homemade label. Anything and everything liquid was labeled in Bobby's house after an unfortunate incident of bad judgment calls while under the influence, some embalming fluid and a newt.

"Four months? What the hell?" Dean asked, needing some sort of explanation. It hadn't felt that long, not at all. One long night at the most.

"Damned if I know. We looked for you in Hell." Bobby snorted, pouring a glass for himself and Dean. He knew Crowley would turn his nose up at the offering so he didn't bother.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Dean said, welcomingly shooting back the amber liquid. Bobby's 'special' stock wasn't meant for sipping pleasure.

"Crowley, you got any input?" Bobby turned toward his demon who looked incredulously back at him for involving him in this conversation.

"Dean is an inept moron who should always wear a helmet and refrain from breeding." Crowley said smoothly, not missing a beat.

"That's a given." Bobby rolled his eyes to the sound of some indignant squawking from Dean. "Anything besides that?"

"Sounds to me like that our Dean spent time in limbo or a heavenly space of some sort for a while. Time moves differently there." Crowley shrugged like he couldn't be bothered.

"Are you trying to tell me I was with Cas for almost half a year and I didn't even know it?" Dean tried to wrap his melon around the concept considering they two of them had spent most of that warped time with him on his back and Castiel moving in and above Dean at a fervent pace.

"Cas? That's an unusual name for an angel." Crowley leered like he knew something he shouldn't. Dean wouldn't put it past him as the hunter grimaced. It was never a good idea to air out too much information around the demon. Bonded or not to Bobby, Dean still didn't trust him. That and that was a whole lot of bonding to think about. Apparently death had immensely improved his stamina.

"Do we even want to know what you're grinning like a loon about?" Crowley said dryly, arching a brow at Dean.

"What? Shut up!" Dean snapped, valiantly pulling his mind out of the gutter and intimate remembrances of his angel. The last thing he wanted to do was pop a boner in front of Crowley. The demon would never let him live it down. Glaring at Crowley who was smirking like he had just stolen the last piece of Dean's pie, the hunter turned his focus back to Bobby.

"Let's go find my brother."

oOo

"Dean?"

Sighing, Dean dodged Sam's attack out of habit. It was like his very own personal greeting now from the other hunters. His name as a question and then some attempted ganking. Luckily for him, Dean had someone to help intervene and smooth out frayed edges for him. He was really getting tired of repeating himself all the time.

"It's him, Sam! I swear it's Dean!" Bobby yelled, coming between the brothers to hold back Sam so that Dean wouldn't have to swing on him, something he was very grateful to the older hunter for. Dean didn't mind the next part of his new greeting though as he was suddenly engulfed by his younger brother, Sam ridiculously larger body wrapping around him. Being hugged was nice and one he didn't seem to mind at all. He'd never been embraced so much or so often in his life before. It almost made dying worth all the hassle.

"Dean…..How?" Sam rasped out, squeezing them both so tight so was impeding his own breathing. Dean smacked his brother's back to signal that he was not only still alive, but he would like to remain that way, Sam reluctantly letting him go. Dean hated how pained Sam sounded, like hope was shards of glass tearing up his throat.

"Angel mojo." Dean made himself grin, pulling up his sleeve to show off the handprint. It was all white now and stood out starkly against his tan skin.

"You finally got your angel." Sam smiled back, the expression weary and relieved but real. He looked terrible, swaying in place with deep marks under his eyes. Dean wondered when was the last time Sam had slept.

"Don't get too excited. The angel is still a no show." Bobby grumbled, helping himself to some of Sam's booze of which there was plenty laying around. From the looks of the rented room, Sam was trying the Winchester's tried and true method of drinking to forget. Despairing, Crowley clucked his tongue at all the cheap labels. The demon was ignored as the hunters toasted Dean's return to life with bourbon that was more fit to strip paint than drink. And that was the third part of his new greeting that Dean liked as well. Free booze.

"So….have you tried calling it?" Sam asked after a moment of quiet that for once was not ominous or tense.

"Now why didn't I think of that?" Dean snarked back good naturedly, feeling so right about it. "Of course, I did. I may be pretty but I'm not stupid. The guy's doing angel stuff, I guess."

"Why don't you give it a shot? I'd like to meet him." Sam said. "Call him."

"He's not a dog that ran off, Sam. It's an angel and he's got better things to do." Dean pointed out, trying not to feel like he was making excuses. Of course, he would get the angel that didn't give two craps about him, not that he could blame Castiel. Righteous man or not, Dean still didn't have a clue why the angel had offered to bond at his own free will with him. "Anyway, I don't need a constant babysitter."

"Hey! I happen to resemble that remark." Bobby retorted while Crowley didn't bother to hide his amusement.

"Truer words were never spoken." Crowley drawled, not clarify which part of course. "Busy or not, your angel should at least make an appearance. That is unless your bond is defective or non-existent."

"Fine!" Dean snapped, seeing red along the edges of his vision. He took a seat cause hell if he was going to make a spectacle of himself and kneel.

"Um…..Cas?" Dean questioned air to unsurprisingly no answer.

"You could try praying, idjit." Bobby pointed out dryly.

"I am!" Dean snapped.

"Try being more, I dunno, devout about it." Sam suggested, biting his lip trying not to chuckle.

"Dear Castiel….." Dean tried again.

"Are you writing him a letter?" Crowley smirked, watching and loving every minute of it how frazzled Dean was getting over this.

"Shut up. Let me do it my way." Dean growled.

"Because that's been working out so well for you so." Crowley smiled all snake oil and malice at him.

"Our father who art in heaven…" Dean went with a classic but trailed off when Bobby groaned out loud, Sam left the room because lack of sleep was giving him a bad case of the giggles, and Crowley looked like he was having the time of his life.

"Now that is just pathetic." the demon chuckled, making Dean shoot up out of his seat, his fists clenched at his sides.

"Castiel! Get your feathery ass down here!" Dean yelled at the ceiling, the space ringing from the volume of his demand. Sam rejoined them, the hunter and demon looking around to merely note their own company. Feeling miserable and trying not to show it, Dean sighed, letting his shoulders slump in defeat.

"Hello Dean." were the two gravelly spoken words that made the humans jump in unison at the angel's sudden appearance, Crowley quietly using the moment to put the hunters between himself and the angel. One could never be too careful after all and he wasn't above making the Winchesters and Bobby a shield. Not that would stop an intent angel but even as a demon, Crowley remained ever the optimist.

"What the hell? That worked!" Dean shouted at the angel, miffed. "Where the hell have you been? I've been calling for you for over a week!"

"I know." Castiel said simply with a nod, making Dean pause mid-rant to give the angel a look, evaluating him.

"Why didn't you answer?" Dean managed out when he remembered how to use words.

"There was no reason to. You were never in any peril." Castiel said, studying Dean with a bland expression that set the hunter's teeth on edge.

"You didn't think I might have wanted some answers?" Dean growled, his jaw clenched with mounting frustration.

"Answers to what?" the angel blinked in open confusion, startling into movement as the handprint flared up, feeling hot as it reminded Dean that they were indeed connected in some way.

Try as he might, Dean couldn't keep his growing ire down. It had been festering inside of him for a while now. "Like why the hell did I wake in a coffin buried six feet under?!"

"It was the safest place to repair and revive your body. It was sheltered from the elements, most bug activity, and human interference." Castiel explained like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

"What the hell?! You don't leave a guy to wake up in his own pine box!" Dean yelled, glaring at the angel who titled his head to the side in question.

"Why?" Castiel asked, unclenches head to the side just a touch. The room stared at him openly, suddenly at a loss for words at the innocently spoken question. Dean licked his lips, feeling exhausted as all his anger left him at once. It was easy to forget that Castiel was not human when he wore a vessel, that his concept and motivations would be so removed from their own. For all intents and purposes, a container buried in earth to protect his body as it was being repaired would seem the most logical place to leave it.

"Because you just don't, ok? It's not cool, no matter how practical. Don't ever do that again…to anyone." Dean told the angel who solemnly nodded like his words were God's own. He pulled up his shirt sleeve to reveal his latest body art. "You mind explaining this to me?"

"It is proof of our profound bond." Castiel said without hesitation to received a round of poorly muffled snickering from the others in the room and wide eyes from Dean.

"Profound bond? Is that what they are calling it these days?" Crowley drawled with a smirk.

"Yes." Castiel confirmed though his eyes narrowed at the demon.

"So let me get this straight. You tag my ass, dump me in a cofin, and then don't bother to contact me or answer me call, and you think that's fine?" Dean waded quickly back into the conversation to distract Castiel. He didn't want Bobby pissed at him for his angel smiting the demon even if Crowley was an asshat.

"Yes?" Castiel head tilted again, breaking Dean's heart and will just a little bit.

"I give up. Who's hungry?" Dean threw his hands up into the air, moving toward the door to leave. He nearly ran into the angel that appear right in front of him, blocking his escape.

"You are angry with me." If Dean had to hazard a guess about Castiel's non-expression, he would have to say that the angel looked miffed.

"Me? Angry? No." Dean mocked, laying his hand over his heart before dropping the wounded act. "I'm pissed as shit at you. Big difference. Why don't you go wing off now or something? You're good at that."

"I don't understand." Castiel fumbled, obviously lost but holding his position which was way too close in Dean's personal space.

"Dean….." Sam said softly, feeling for the angel who was obviously not following this line of thought well. At the moment, Castiel looked more like a kicked puppy than a cosmic celestial being. At his brother's utterance, Dean made himself look at the angel, running his hands over his face in self defense while feeling incredibly tired about it all.

"Guys, can you give us a minute." Dean said, more statement than request. Taking it to heart, Bobby and Crowley left without saying anything though the demon was smirking, Sam following closely behind them with a slight yet strange smile on his face. The door closing shut with a click was far louder than it should have been, a ring of metal that hung in the air between bonded angel and man.

"Can you tell me what you want from me? Perhaps it would help me to understand you…your needs." Castiel offered hesitantly like Dean was the confusing one here.

"I don't want anything from you." Dean snapped the model of healthy communication to find himself nose to nose with an angel and not in a good way if that icy glare was anything to go by.

"You should show me some respect." Castiel said in a low, penetrating voice. Dean found it strangely arousing. Not for the first time, he wondered how screwed up he was in the head.

"So this bond….." Dean said slowly. "…I guessing I'm not going to get a fluffy angel to sit on my shoulder."

"I'm a warrior. Read the Bible." Castiel glowered, continuing to invade his personal space, their chests almost touching.

"Thanks but I try to avoid. You want to back up there, huggy bear? I like my breathing room." Dean muttered, moving back away from the angel. To his distress, Castiel moved with him, following the hunter all the way until Dean's back hit the wall. Dean focused on breathing long, calm breaths when he realized that he was trapped, more or less between a wall and an immoveable angel who looked like he was still considering smiting as a viable option.

Oddly enough, Castiel pressed two fingers up against Dean's forehead, the touch light and that was the last thing Dean felt before he was yanked back into his own mind. There, he saw himself or at least versions of his younger self moving in and out of the void all around him.

"What are you doing to me?" Dean called out. He startled when he noticed Castiel standing right beside him, the look on his face focused elsewhere.

"I am attempting to understand you better by finding answers." Castiel said, looking far more calm than he was before.

"By cracking open my melon?!" Dean realized, whipping around on the angel. "Get out of my head!"

"I have already tried inquiring but you have refused to give me an explanation. All that there is left is this." Castiel informed him.

"THIS happens to be mine! Get out!" Dean fumed, trying not to pay attention to what was going on around him. Most of his childhood were not good or worth living over again.

"Correction. This is ours. We are bonded. When you feel physical and mental pain or anguish, I feel it as well." Castiel mused, still actively shifting through what Dean could only assume were his memories. "You experience pain often. I do not like it."

"Then ask me! What do you want to know so badly?!" Dean yelled, the sound so muffled by his own inner head space it was disconcerting.

"Why an angel?" was the question that brought Dean up short and made him grow quiet. "From what I understand, demons are far easier to acquire so why bother with all the dangers of bonding with an angel?"

Dean answered when he couldn't aloud, the damnable memory playing out behind him in vivid pristine color. It was one of his better ones so he recognized it instantly.

From time to time, Jo would stay with Bobby which meant from time to time the Winchester boys would be there as well. Along with the little girl came her angel, Anuel or Anna for short. Though she had grown up tough, Jo at once point in time been a little girl who had been very afraid of thunderstorms, a common occurrence in South Dakota. Sam was too, so while Jo had her angel, he had Dean to watch over him as he slept.

The two of them had stayed up countless night together lulling their charges back into slumber to the low rumbling of thunder and the erratic light show of lightening. Dean would hum songs from a long gone era, even the one that his mom used to sing to him while he was sick. Anna was probably the only angel in existence that knew every word to 'Hey Jude' and 'Carry On Wayward Son'. Returning the favor, the red headed angel would as well but Dean liked his better. At least they were in English. Sometimes Anna and Dean would talk in whispers, sometimes to the sleeping and other times to each other. No one could whisper promises like an angel, soothing words of 'I love you always' and 'I will never leave you'.

Even though they were not meant for him, Dean took them to heart, desire turned to seeds that rooted deep in his young heart. From that point on, he wanted an angel of his own, that kind of faithful, effortless love, the kind that would always find him and never leave his side.

Reality was a bitch though. This was the real world, broken and ruined, and really what had he expected from life. Nice things like love were for other people. Dean knew he was being ridiculous, that dreams were vapor, the likes of which were never meant to come true.

When Castiel drew away from him, Dean knew he had experienced as this well, knew the desire of a lonely little boy who was left to sit up in the wicked dark to look after his younger brother because that was what was expected of him. Had glimpsed at a dream that the hunter had sought after even though he stopped believing in it, taking a chance when an opportunity had presented itself in the form of Jimmy Novak. Fresh shame, hot and searing, mingled with old, the self loathing making Dean want to curl in on himself, burning away the remnants of memories that swirled all around them until there was nothing but dead space. He had been selfish, had cost a man his existence, and yet had still gotten his angel.

"Are you happy now? You got your answers." Dean rasped low and sharp, swallowing so hard his throat clicked, it was so dry and razor filled with emotion. "Now get out of my head and go back to whatever you were doing."

"I have hurt you." Castiel said point blank the only way he could.

"Me? Nah." Dean snorted, shaking his head as he faked a smile. He made the mistake of looking over at the angel who was still way too close to him here in the dark.

"We are connected now, you and I for the better part of eternity." Castiel pointed out. "There is a sadness deep within you and an aching loneliness."

"I don't know what you are talking about." Dean muttered, turning away to find himself in exactly the same position, face to face with Castiel.

"I hurts me as well, this void inside of you." the angel whispered, the soft sounds of it echoing here.

"Sounds like a personal problem….." Dean tried to make light of it to have soft lips pressed to his own. The hunter jerked away. "What?! Stop!"

"Do you not like it?" Castiel was still on him, pressed up to him so that the lines of their body were flush and Dean couldn't tell where he ended and Castiel began.

"No, yes, it doesn't matter. What are you doing?" Dean word vomited.

"I am trying to show you affection." Castiel said, doing that damn head tilt thing again.

"Just…..just don't." Dean murmured, bowing his head until it met the solidness of Castiel's shoulder. If he wouldn't be allowed to leave, he refused to look on in the face of torment.

"Is that not how it is done? You must forgive me. My people skills are rusty but I am learning." Castiel said softly in Dean's eye, his lips too close to the shell of it for Dean's comfort. He shivered whenever the angel remembered to fake breathing.

"Yeah, well. Learn quicker and hands off of the goods." Dean sighed, his hands finally finding their way to Castiel's shoulders to push the angel back or at least try to. Castiel could have been made of stone.

"Please….I don't want to feel your pain anymore." Castiel pleaded softly, making guilt worm its way up beside all the other crap in Dean's head. "Stop, stop. Please stop. I want you to experience happiness, like when we were together. Please…"

"I don't know how." Dean told the angel honestly, shaking his head as he stared into those aching beautiful blue eyes. He had walked a lonely road for so long, he didn't know what to do with the company that kept with him now. No one else cared about crap like that so why should he?

Expect, now someone did and was begging him for help, for him to help him by helping himself, and Dean had no idea how to. He placed his forehead against the angel's own just so that he could admire those azure eyes that saw him, glistening and clearer than any morning in June. Something settled inside of him, a realization and a remembrance of something the angel said earlier, making Dean press a part of himself forward, tendrilling, searching for whatever and wherever he was connected to Castiel.

Now that he let himself see it, their bond was right there, bright and shimmering like a cord of intangible silver braided from starlight, spider's silk, and mist. Something fragile and impossible, something beautiful and sanctified, something that Dean was positive he didn't deserve but grabbed hold of with both hand without hesitation anyway, whether they were real or not, and clung tight.

In answer, Castiel sang in surprise as they were both pitched forward out of Dean's mind and into the angel's head space. At least it sounded like singing to Dean which was surprising. To human hearing, angel voices tended to ring unintelligibly shrill and Enochian a deafening garble of blocky words. Castiel's voice sounded like the hum of the Impala's engine, the thrum of honey bees' wings, and bass beat of his favorite song now to Dean.

The pair landed in the garden from before, kite flyer hanging out though this time Dean was happy to see that he was still wearing his torn jeans and vintage band t-shirt but was lacking his boots for some reason. He wiggled his toes in the soft grass and appreciated the clean air for a moment before turning back to the angel, Castiel looking dazed and confused for some reason, like he hadn't expected to be there.

"How did you do this?" Castiel asked, wide eyed and looking remarkably scared for an angel.

"You said that my head space was yours too, that we had time shares so I figured that meant I had a lease on your place as well." Dean mused, not knowing what to do for Castiel to put him at ease in his own head. He didn't do comfort, all that touchy feely crap.

"This should not have been possible." Castiel said firmly, like stating that sort of thing would change anything.

"That's me all around. Defying odds, breaking rules, and shaking things up." Dean said, shoving his hands into his pockets and balancing back on his heels. There was a pond nearby. He wondered if there were any fish in it or if he could have his angel imagine some up for him. Fishing sounded safe right now.

Which might be why he was seated out on a dock with a fishing pole in hand, overlooking a pristine lake colored gold and red in an eternal sunset. "Where the hell are we?" Dean asked, looking up to see Castiel standing beside him.

"In between you and me." Castiel replied, looking out onto the water with a serene expression. Dean would take that look of neutrality over fear any day of the week, the hunter settling into his chair more comfortably. He checked the line on the pole and upon finding it secure, forgetting about it completely.

"Yeah, that makes total sense." Dean sighed in contentment for once. The lake was lovely and the weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cold. He didn't even care if he caught anything. Dean just leaned back and enjoyed a moment of peace for once. The rustle of feathers was soft and soothing. The wings' shadows felt cool against Dean's skin but in a nice way, like tenderness so rarely experienced or so freely given.

"That feels nice." Castiel murmured. Even though he didn't know what the angel was referring to, Dean couldn't have agreed more.


End file.
